


Friends at First Sight

by innie



Series: Powerball [1]
Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: AU, F/M, Powerball AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 08:35:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1772668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/pseuds/innie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny can't figure out why he's on Mindy's list.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friends at First Sight

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to blithers for the awesome beta and cheerleading!

Danny stuck the course catalog for Hunter between his teeth so he'd have a free hand to unlock his door. It was thick enough that his jaw clicked in protest when he fumbled his keyring, the heavy toolbox in his other hand making him stand lopsided.

He'd oiled all the locks and hinges in the building just the other day, and the door opened noiselessly. He wiped his feet on the mat – Christina never would unless he did it himself – and let himself in, carefully setting the toolbox down and liberating his mouth. He could hear Christina laughing in a way he hadn't heard in a long time, he realized, and smiled. She must be on the phone with her sisters, doing one of those crazy three-way calls that lasted for hours but always left her smiling. He crouched to unlace his boots, pulled them off, and stood, popping the knots out of his back with a stretch. As he padded closer to the bedroom, he could hear the sound of her camera's shutter.

Later, he would think of that sound as his unheeded warning. Later, he would think lots of things.

He pushed open the door and saw her, naked, on the bed, camera in one hand and her head tipped back with laughter. His heart seized up with delight at the picture she made, all golden in the spring light. But her free hand – the one he'd put his mother's ring on – was resting familiarly on the hip of someone else equally naked, someone who looked back when the door opened, and it was a man – some asshole who had the pinched and pink look of those creepy hairless cats, who stood up with his hand out in a placating gesture and spoke some empty words like he could preempt any kind of reaction to this . . . adultery. Betrayal. Heart-crushing and abject destruction of his life.

Christina's eyes were so blue. Her face was so beautiful.

He just stood there, unable to speak, until he realized he could still walk even if he couldn't talk, and he turned on his heel and left.

*

He found himself on the street, his boot laces done up wrong, clutching the catalog like it was a lifeline. He felt absolutely crazed, like he was trapped in some kind of bubble, all of his fears and hatreds and insecurities expanding out from him in an aura of madness. Of course she cheated on him – of course he couldn't give her what she wanted – of course he was ending up alone, like he'd always thought he would.

"Excuse me?" he heard, and he whirled and came face-to-face with some tourist who obviously came from one of those places where everyone left their doors unlocked and couldn't see that talking to him was like trying to charm your way out of a pit of despair. This one was dressed head to toe in purple, and was smiling like he was just the person she wanted to see. "Could you tell me how to get to FAO Schwarz?"

He was going to die, right here on the sidewalk, talking to some random woman who kept smiling at him. Her face changed, suddenly, and she stepped closer, smelling sweet and sounding concerned. "Hey, are you okay? I have – wait –" She set down all of her shopping bags, rummaged in a purse the size of the space shuttle, and emerged with a pack of Kleenex. He waved it away and wiped his eyes with the side of his hand. 

"Wow, so you weren't wearing mascara, those are your real eyelashes," the woman said, and he wasn't sure what was going on now, but he knew he needed to be alone, because he might as well get used to it.

"Yeah, FAO Schwarz," he said, trying to get rid of her, then cleared his throat because his voice was just a feeble croaky mess. "Head over to St. Patrick's, make a right, and you'll see it when you hit the park." He looked at her and she was still watching him, looking like she hadn't heard a word he'd said.

"Do you want to join me?" she asked. "We could play a piano duet. God, how adorable was Tom Hanks in that movie?"

Maybe she was the weird one in the conversation. "My ma told me never to go off with strangers."

"Danny, I'm Mindy," she said, and stuck out her hand. He shook it automatically. "Now we're not strangers."

"Wait, how did you –?"

One short but brightly polished fingernail pointed at the name tag on his canvas coveralls: the patch Christina had sewed on, as a joke, to show him that she didn't care that he made his half of the rent by working as the super for their high-rise, when she could have snagged a doctor or a lawyer, looking the way she did. 

When he looked back up at Mindy, she was holding out a cupcake with the Magnolia paper still on the bottom. "We exchange names, break bread together, and _voilà!_ we're friends!" she said, smiling. "You can tell me all about your classes while we walk."

Oh, yeah. The catalog. He shook his head and made to throw it in the corner trashcan, but she blocked his way. "Why do you even want to be my friend?" he asked, exasperated by their little sidewalk dance, which looked even crazier when one person was holding a cupcake in front of the other.

"Because you're the only person who took the time to answer me when I got lost, and I asked _everybody_ not wearing earbuds since 44th Street," she said. "Come on, Danny, friends?"

He had to give her fair warning. "I don't feel very friend-worthy right now," he said, finally taking the cupcake. He had to stop her smile. "You don't know. Maybe I stand out here luring trusting tourists to my den of iniquity."

"Yeah, like the guy who tried to give me directions using a _church_ as a landmark is gonna hurt one hair on my head," Mindy said, scoffing, and dropped the catalog into one of her many overstuffed bags. "You can carry this bag," she said and marched off in entirely the wrong direction. He had to steer her the right way with a hand on the small of her back.

*

When they got to St. Patrick's, she surprised him by going in as if that had been her destination all along. "Come on, Danny. I want to light a candle for somebody, but I have a fire phobia. Help a girl out."

The still, cool air in the majestic space did what it always did for him: it made him quiet and more able to hear everything happening around him. It was what he hoped heaven would be like.

Something settled inside him – not resignation, not forgiveness, not yet – and he could breathe again. He closed his eyes and just let himself be.

He could hear the rustle of her ten thousand bags and felt sweet warmth as Mindy sat next to him. "Did you light your candle?"

She was smiling when he opened his eyes – big surprise – but it was a contemplative smile, suited to their surroundings. "They had those long fireplace kind of tapers, so my fingers weren't too close to the flame. And I wanted Steve to know I was doing him a solid. He was so great, Danny; you would have liked him."

Who the hell was Steve? And how would she know who he'd like? He'd so easily fallen into her orbit, but it was time to go home now and figure out what scraps of his life Christina had left for him. No, on second thought, maybe he needed to be back in Staten; seeing Ma always made him feel better, like he couldn't be that bad a person if her face could still light up every time she saw him.

"Dinner?" she asked. "FAO will be there tomorrow, but right now I am totally craving Italian. Chunky tomato sauce, garlic bread, the works. Where do you think?"

"Mindy," he said, and she caught his tone and let her face get serious; it was a little unsettling how quickly she could cloak her emotions. "I have to go."

"Oh," she said, and he felt like a dick for leaving her with all her bags.

"Let me at least call you a cab," he offered, rubbing the back of his neck with a nervous hand.

"I thought – dinner with a friend –" she stammered, "I thought we agreed."

"We broke bread – that cupcake, remember?"

"You ate the whole thing!" she said, sounding honestly outraged, as if she hadn't been two seconds away from cramming it down his throat manually.

"You made me!" he shot back, sighing exasperatedly when he saw her smile, triumphant this time. "Okay, you caught me on a technicality," he said.

*

He put her in a cab after they polished off cannoli – it took him and the cabbie three trips to load all of her bags in the trunk, as they seemed to have multiplied on their stroll downtown – and heard her say, "Peninsula Hotel." Holy shit. If she could afford the Peninsula, then he felt slightly less bad about letting her pay for dinner; he'd been halfway through his stracotto when he'd remembered that his wallet was still in his toolbox, sitting in his apartment, and had gone red-faced and silent while Mindy rhapsodized over her osso buco and poked him to get him to order a third round of garlic bread. When she'd finally realized what was bugging him, she'd laughed and told him not to be a dummy, and that he could buy her a hot dog next time. Or, as she'd put it, many, many hot dogs and soft-serve after.

Whatever she said, she'd done something good for him, because he was feeling a little more balanced; he could show up at Ma's like it was any other night and not like he wanted to crawl into her lap and get her to fix his life. The stiff breeze coming off the water felt good on his face, and he tucked the bundle of his shucked coveralls more securely under his arm. Staten Island loomed ahead of him, and his grip on the ferry rail stayed steady.

* * *

"Mrs. Guarancini," Danny called, jogging into the small pharmacy and shop, "you got Ma's pills?"

"Danny-boy!" she said, coming out from behind the counter to squeeze him. "Sweetheart, I didn't know you were coming out; Angie didn't stop by for any chocolate lobster-tails. Is she doing okay?" 

"Yeah, she's fine," he said, just like he did every time he saw Mrs. G. He couldn't remember why he'd ever left Staten, when it was one of those places where people took care of each other and worried about their neighbors. "How are you? How's Stevie?"

She beamed and threw her hands in the air dramatically. "Who knows what he's up to, he doesn't tell me anything even though he's living under my roof, and his father only dead these ten years. You'll come for a visit?"

"Absolutely," he said. "Just – I gotta get the pills and get back."

"Such a good boy," she said, pinching his cheek like she had when there'd been a lot more there to pinch. She bustled behind the counter and he had high hopes that he'd actually be able to leave in a few, but then the phone rang. He mumbled a curse under his breath, then crossed himself when he heard her say hello to Father Francis.

He moved out of earshot, skimming the headlines on the newspapers and wishing Mrs. G could multitask. Ma would already be making him bacon and eggs and waiting for him, and she could only take her pills with a meal. Maybe he should pick up a couple of lobster-tails for them to have with their afternoon coffee. No, he was already going to need credit to get the pills, and he shouldn't make Mrs. G pay the price for his not having the balls to go back to his own apartment.

"Oh, you'll never guess!" Mrs. G exclaimed, hanging up the phone. "Father Francis spoke with Father Carmine and said that yesterday, some lady put a thousand-dollar bill in the collection box next to the votives!"

"Father Carmine at St. Patrick's?" he asked, taken aback when she nodded enthusiastically. "I was just there yesterday – wait, how'd he know it was a woman?"

"She wrote _because of Steve_ on the edge, and put hearts on it. A thousand dollars! Think what that'll do for the restoration fund!" 

His stomach dropped entirely then. That had to be Mindy. Why couldn't any part of his life make sense?

*

His phone rang when he was walking back to Ma's. He didn't think he knew anybody with a 646 area code number, but he couldn't imagine Christina finding an unknown number to call him from when she hadn't even bothered trying him from her own phone. "Hello?"

"Hey, Danny!"

"What the hell are you doing, walking around with thousand-dollar bills in the middle of Manhattan?" Danny hissed before he remembered that this was none of his business. There was silence on the other end of the line. "Shit, I'm sorry, I just – I heard, and it threw me for a loop, and –"

"Was it inappropriate?" Mindy asked in a small voice. "Because I'm not Catholic or from New York?"

What the hell was wrong with him? "You don't have to be either to have a big heart," he said finally. "That money's gonna make a lot of difference for the church." She was still quiet. Screw it, she deserved better. "And I bet Steve thinks what you did was great."

"Danny," she said, a long quiet exhale that sounded a lot like she was trying not to cry. "Where are you?"

It didn't seem so weird that she should have the information. "At my ma's, out on Staten."

"You're on an entirely different landmass?" she asked, her voice rising.

"Sorta, but it's close – I just hopped the ferry." 

"Well, when are you hopping back?"

"I – I don't know." He'd thought this morning, waking up in his old bed with the busted blinds letting in the sun at the same angle they always had, that he was ready, but the possibility of facing Christina without further humiliation was receding quickly. 

"Oh. Well, you have my number," Mindy said, and disconnected when he couldn't think what else to say and was just listening to her breathe.

*

He didn't tell Ma what had happened; she loved Christina. He almost called Richie for support, but this wasn't something he wanted to be explaining over the phone. Still, he did himself the favor of taking the long way home, and when he got off the 1 and headed east, he was surprised to see Mindy, sitting at Casa Lever with a plate of sliders and a cocktail in front of her. He hadn't realized how long her hair was – she must have had it up the day before – but that was the same dazzling smile she aimed his way when she caught sight of him, stopped in his tracks like an idiot. 

She gestured for him to join her, so he crossed the street to make his refusal politely. "I can't, I still don't have my wallet back," he said.

"Please," she said, "I'd really like to talk to you, and the price of a couple of drinks seems fair."

That was nice of her, to make it seem like he was doing her a favor. Once he got his shit squared away, he'd cook for her . . . that thought was halted by the realization that he probably couldn't call his apartment home anymore. Whether Christina dug in her heels and said he should be the one to leave or not, he couldn't imagine sleeping comfortably in the room that he'd caught her in. It looked like it was back to Staten for good. 

At least he kept some underwear and shirts and a jacket there, so he didn't look too crazily rumpled as he sat down opposite Mindy, who today was wearing green plaid like she'd been born a preppie. "Hi," he said, surprised by how attentive the waiter was, rushing over with a place setting and menu.

"Hi," she said, gesturing to the plate of sliders, "help yourself."

It looked like she might even be able to out-stubborn him, because she didn't reach for one until he'd snagged one for himself. He peeled off his jacket and spread his napkin on his lap.

"I wanted to . . . talk to you," she said, and he looked up from his slider when her voice trailed off, only to catch her eyeing his wedding ring, which hung off a chain around his neck, easily visible through his thin henley. She cocked her head curiously at it. "Are you married?"

His tight grip spurted slider-meat out from between the buns, marring the pristine white of the tablecloth. "Ye – n, no. I don't think so. Not anymore."

The waiter came by, anxious to change the tablecloth, but Mindy waved him away. Danny could feel himself getting sweaty under her unwavering gaze. "That recent? Do you want to talk about it?"

"Let me get back to you on that," he said finally. "What did you want to tell me?"

She smiled. "I wanted a real New Yorker's help figuring out where to live, but that can wait."

*

When he stepped into the apartment, it seemed empty; remembering what a blow it had been last time, he hastened to the bedroom door, just wanting to get things over with if Christina was there. 

She was, and the guy was, too, not any better-looking clothed, in his opinion, but what did he know? He wasn't the one casting glances at people other than his spouse. They were sitting together on the bed, making a list, and when he walked in they stood. The guy actually nudged Christina and then nodded as she read off all the points on their little list, like he, Danny, was the asshole, and the things Christina was saying had anything to do with why she'd fucked someone else in their bed.

"So I'm the bad guy?" he said flatly, waiting for the guy to say something the way he had the other day, just so he could feel justified in taking a swing. The guy had the nerve to push Christina behind him, like Danny had _ever_ raised a hand to her, and that was it, he was done. 

"Sure," he said, throwing open the closet and stuffing his clothes indiscriminately into a duffel; he'd just done laundry the morning of the discovery, so there wasn't anything in the hamper. He'd made up the bed and spread Christina out on the crisp new sheets and taken his time and she'd – done something her heart wasn't in, obviously. "Yeah, I'm the bad guy." 

All his music went into a heavy-duty backpack, and his keyboard went under his arm. They'd never gotten around to buying proper china, but he had one of his ma's good knives, so he sheathed and packed that too, in his toolbox.

He was out on the sidewalk before it hit him that he could carry everything he had. The number of years he'd given Christina, and this was all it boiled down to – no kids, no nothing. Maybe he _was_ the bad guy.

*

"Hey, Danny!" Mindy said when she picked up. He thought maybe she had him on speakerphone, because her voice was weirdly echoey and loud. "I'm just curling my hair, so I'm going hands-free on the call, okay? What's up?"

He couldn't interrupt her if she was going out. "I, uh –" God, he was bad at this. Why was he calling this woman he'd met only the day before? It wasn't like he could crash on the couch in her insanely expensive hotel room. What he needed to do was take the ferry back out to Staten and lick his wounds in private.

"Oh," he heard, and then suddenly her voice was softer, more intimate, like she'd snatched up her phone to murmur directly into his ear. "Danny, are you ready to talk now?"

"Yeah," he croaked, clutching his phone way too tightly.

"Come by. I'm in the penthouse suite."

*

It took some juggling, but he managed to carry all of his stuff plus two orders of chicken and rice with white sauce and pita from the food-truck a few blocks from her hotel. He was willing to bet that no one looking like he did and dragging all his worldly possessions behind him had ever gained admittance to the Peninsula before, but all he had to say at the front desk was the magic word: _Mindy_. The lady behind the desk, who'd been eyeing his paper bag of food like she thought it held live rats, was suddenly all smiles and charm and "Ms. Lahiri is expecting you."

The penthouse had a private elevator with a couch, so he stacked all his stuff as neatly as he could and felt his stomach drop on the slow ride up. Pacing didn't help, and he didn't expect the elevator to open directly into her suite or for her to be singing along to "Mickey," pouring out of the speakers mounted on the walls. Her voice was a little sharp, but bubbling with life, and then there she was, walking toward him in a silky silver robe with huge curlers in her hair. He missed the green plaid but saw that her face was as bright and engaging as ever.

He held out the card for the elevator. "Hey, uh, thanks for letting me up here."

Her robe had pockets, so he didn't get why she held her hands up and said, "Keep it. We can talk – wait, what smells so amazing?"

"Oh, I brought you dinner. To say thanks and to maybe start to pay you back."

"Danny," she said firmly. "Wait, it's really hard to be stern when I don't know your last name."

"Castellano," he said, crossing his arms because he was an idiot who couldn't drop the defense mechanisms even for a second.

"Daniel Castellano, you are never to worry about paying me back. I am rolling in it – we're talking like beyond rap videos with mattresses stuffed with money kind of rich, beyond buying countries like Greece as a pick-me-up kind of rich. I've got it, and I've been spending it like a drunken sailor."

So then why was she alone? If she'd inherited money, she should have a lifetime of leeches waiting around, and if she'd invented or discovered something, she would have split the money with her partners and kept working – she had too much energy not to. "How?"

"I guess they really did keep my name confidential," Mindy said. "I'm the Powerball winner. Three hundred and thirty-seven million dollars." 

"Yeah, but that's before taxes," Danny said, just to be saying something, because the number kind of broke his brain. Between Mindy and Christina, he was just a sack of broken, jangling parts.

"I knew you had a sense of humor!" Mindy shouted with a victorious fist-pump. "Now grab the food – we're gonna talk while we chow down. Then I'm gonna go get pretty" – he flicked his eyes up to see her matter-of-fact expression, like no one'd ever contradicted her when she said that – "and you're gonna lace my corset _tight_ and we're gonna go dancing."

He froze, cradling the warm bag of food in both hands. "Wait, you're wearing a corset?" It was a very nice image, but those things had to be too uncomfortable to dance in.

"Duh, Danny, I'm referencing _Gone with the Wind_. Have you been living under a rock?"

"She's unhappy at the end of the movie," he pointed out, remembering how surprised he'd been when the credits rolled. What was Little Miss Sass Mouth going to say about that? Why was he even arguing with her, the one person who evidently gave a shit about him?

"Noooo, she's all _focused_ at the end of the movie, she finally knows what she wants and how to get it. If they had made a sequel, she probably would have been, like, a ninja."

"A ninja belle?" he asked incredulously. Was she even listening to herself? 

"Oooh, I'm calling it – that'll be the name of my debut album," she said, brandishing forks and plates from the galley kitchen. "Multi-platinum, guaranteed."

*

Mindy was a good listener, even if she did basically inhale her dinner and then slide sideways to be closer to his. If he kept his eyes down and just watched her hand dart and dip to steal all of his pita wedges, he thought he could get through the story.

"Who _cares_ how long it'd been since she laughed?" Mindy demanded, tucking her feet under her, and he did not let himself look at the glimpses of thigh her gaping robe didn't cover. "When was the last time _you_ laughed, Danny?"

"I thought I was happy," he said, poking at his food with the heavy silver fork. "And I, I don't know," – he cleared his throat, feeling beyond stupid that the one time he'd chosen something just for himself he'd been so totally wrong – "I thought she was happy to be all I needed."

"Ugh, shiksa goddesses," Mindy said, her nose in the air.

"I'm not Jewish," he said.

"The principle remains the same, Danny! Didn't you ever listen to the director's commentary on _When Harry Met Sally . . ._?"

"That was gonna be next, after I got to Mrs. Goldberg's leaking sink," he cracked, feeling a little better, before his responsibilities came crashing back on him. "Shit, I never even told them I was done."

"You can call them later," she said. "The principle is this: you never thought you deserved her, and you're not really all that surprised you don't get to keep her. So this is the crucial moment in the movie."

"My life is not a movie –" he started, before she hushed him up with a hand over his mouth. 

"You can make it your mission to win her back, to prove to her and to yourself that you do have what it takes to make her happy, _or_ you can take a step back and figure out if you really were happy when you were with her and go from there." She moved her hand then, and he gulped some air, transfixed by the way she was looking at him, her dark eyes utterly hypnotic. "It's your call, Danny."

"What would you –"

"Nuh-uh. I'm not telling you what I _would_ do. I'm telling you what we're _gonna_ do, right now, and that is hit a club and dance our asses off." She eyed him sternly, evidently waiting for him to protest, but he hadn't let loose in so long that even a bump-and-grind club sounded like a good idea. "Yeah, that's right. You're gonna listen to me, and you're gonna like it." She got up on her knees and surprised him with a quick but fierce hug. "Now, I'm trusting you to pick out your own outfit. Don't let me down, Castellano."

*

Danny dragged his stuff from the elevator into her palatial suite, leaving it under the overhang of the massive glass dining table, where it wouldn't get in the way. He tugged his duffel strap free of his battered keyboard and rested the bag on top of the table, rooting around for his toothbrush; that white sauce – what little Mindy had left him – had been fiercely garlicky. He groaned when he remembered that he hadn't taken any of his stuff from the bathroom, where he'd just mounted a couple of Christina's best photographs. That meant no toothbrush, no razor, no comb.

"Hey, uh, Mindy?" he called, taking a few cautious steps toward the hallway she'd disappeared down.

"Yeah?" she called.

"Do you –"

"Wait, I can't hear you," she said.

The phone near him rang, a discreet tone that still managed to be intrusive. Maybe it was the front desk saying her limo or whatever was here. "Yeah?" he said into the receiver.

"Much better!" Mindy said on the other end. "Now, what's up?"

"I need a toothbrush, so I'm gonna run down to Duane Reade. Do you need anything?"

"No need, my friend, I've got extras. Just come back here – I don't bite."

"I was trying to respect your privacy," he protested.

"Good job, then, weirdo," she said, and hung up.

He hung up the phone and laughed under his breath, then shuffled down the hall. The bathroom had rows and rows of lights, like the mirrors in photos of glamorous Hollywood dressing-rooms, and all of the lights were reflecting off the short, sparkly teal dress she was wearing. Her mouth was gaping as she applied mascara, and when she leaned forward he realized her dress wasn't yet done up. That much he could do without prompting, so he stepped close and drew the zipper up slowly, careful not to catch the material in the metal. 

"Thanks," she said, switching eyes. "Over there." She pointed with her chin, and he opened the medicine cabinet to find several toothbrushes still wrapped in plastic. Hers, in the crystal tumbler on the counter, was aqua with purple stars, so he found a plain purple one that would be easy to tell apart.

He had a mouth full of toothpaste foam when he heard her say his name. He cut his eyes sideways and saw her dangling a crystal bracelet from one hand, jingling it as close to his face as she could reach. He reached out and took it, and she turned her arm so that the inside of her wrist was facing up. Parking the toothbrush in a corner of his mouth, he fastened the bracelet around her wrist. He removed the brush, spat, and said, "You're such a brat," and smiled when she laughed.

*

"Damn, Danny, you clean up nice," she said, walking out in heels that defied the laws of physics.

"You, uh, you too." He was wearing his best pants and the lavender button-down Richie had bought him for his birthday, but felt unfinished without his cologne and the chain on which his wedding ring had hung for six years. He flipped through the bills in his wallet again, resolutely not looking at the condoms he carried because Christina said the pill wrecked her, ensuring he had enough for a taxi ride. "So what's the plan?"

"You tell me," she said, perching on one of the barstools and swinging her legs. Even with those ridiculous heels on, her feet cleared the floor by a good couple of inches. "This is my first big night out in New York, the land of dreams. What's the place to go?" 

"Uh," he said, panicking. A bar where he could sink a few beers and play some pool was basically his speed; he hadn't exactly been a regular at the fancy nightclubs, even if he'd picked Christina up at one, where she'd been waiting outside and he'd been strolling by, looking to bum a cigarette. He couldn't even remember the name of that place. "Let me, um, make a call," he said. Richie had better answer his phone.

He heard one ring, then a second, then the sound of a camera, and he looked up, unpleasantly startled, to find Mindy tossing her hair back and taking a selfie. "Smile, Danny," she said, and aimed her phone his way.

"You're a grown woman, why do you need a Captain America phone cover?" he griped, before Richie finally picked up. "Richie! It's Danny. What's the best club in Manhattan? Uh huh. Yeah. I'll call you tomorrow – you should be in bed anyway. No, don't tell me that!" He disconnected, trying not to picture what Richie'd been describing.

Mindy had her hands clasped hopefully. "Spill."

"He's getting us on the list at Tan Tru," Danny said. He shoved his phone into his pocket and found himself unable to meet her eyes. Before he could ask what exactly they were doing – whether she'd be bringing someone else home from the club – she threw him his jacket and shrugged into one of her own.

"You've got the key, right?" He patted his pocket and nodded. "The night is young, my friend, and so are we."

*

Mindy was electrifying on the dance floor, her hands light on his arms but her body making his space hers too. She danced like that was all she wanted to do, like she had no ulterior motive in mind, and he watched, delighting in the way she moved with abandon.

She used him as a home base, nestling against him whenever a guy got too aggressive, and didn't even seem to care that he was sweating into her hair and against her bared skin. He'd forgotten how therapeutic it could be, to make contact like this instead of with his fist, and her eyes flashed approval for his ease on the dance floor. Danny could smell her sweat rising up through the clouds of her perfume and finally let go of everything he'd been hauling around in favor of catching Mindy around the waist and grinding up against her, the slow drag of their bodies infinitely satisfying. 

Laughing, she threw her arms around his neck and said, between the pulses of the bass, "You're better than the movies, Danny Castellano."

* * *

"You're a little nutjob," he said, almost admiringly; the balls on her were unreal.

"No, Danny, Danny, just hear me out," she said, like he was going to take anyone who wore a satin eye mask and silk pajamas seriously. Especially when that someone was also rocking some major bedhead and fuzzy pink socks. "I have it all figured out. You're not working, so you need a job, but you need one that will accommodate your school schedule."

That startled him. "I'm not taking classes –"

Mindy stopped him with a gesture. "That catalog weighed like ten pounds and had your teeth-marks in it, Danny, of course you want to go to school. You could start in September. The _point is_ ," she said, raising her voice to drown out his protests, "I'm the one with the perfect job for you."

"What's that? Guy who gets you into nightclubs and makes sure you don't go home with anyone shady?" And who also doesn't get to drive you wild himself, he nearly added. She was too nice to be his rebound from Christina.

"Yes, what's wrong with that? And roommate and handyman and study buddy – what, you're not the only one who missed out on college – and best friend. God, why is this so hard for you to wrap your mind around?"

"Because no one's this nice to me!" he exploded. "What is your deal, Mindy?"

She froze with her room-service caramel latte halfway to her lips, and Danny flushed, aware he was taking the dumbass room-service guy's knowing smirk out on her, but still wanting an answer to his question. 

"I'm nice to you because you deserve to have someone be nice to you!" she said, and he couldn't stop the reflexive shake of his head. "Shut up! I happen to be an excellent judge of character, and even though you're being the biggest pain in the ass in the history of the world right now, you are still a good person and we could be amazing BFFs, and you're gonna be wearing this latte if you keep shaking your head!"

"You wouldn't," he said, folding his arms across his chest.

A split-second later, caramel syrup was streaking down his face. "Looks like you're not quite the judge of character that I am," Mindy sing-songed, then started patting him down with a weirdly non-absorbent cloth napkin that only moved the mess around.

So maybe she didn't want a lapdog, and he nearly shook with the relief; he was a grown man, not a charity case. "Yeah, but how will you get your caffeine fix now?" he asked, pulling off his t-shirt and mopping himself off with the dry bits. He needed to clean the couch before the stain set.

"We'll make sure the place we get is near a steady stream of really good coffee, duh," she said. "You won't regret this, Danny, I swear!" 

*

He regretted it basically from minute one, because the day she had planned was a shopping marathon. First she pitched his old flip-phone and said he needed to upgrade _and_ learn how to text, because some of her thoughts were too profound not to be written down for posterity. "How quick are you planning to produce these children who will be dazzled by your wit?" he asked, and she laughed and told him not to be a butthead. He ended up with the same phone as hers, set to the same password and synched so that one could always locate the other. 

Before they'd even left the store, he heard a chirp coming from the back pocket of his jeans, and there was his first text message: _Hi!_

"Yeah, hi," he said.

"Way to miss the point, Danny," she said, and made fun of the plain blue rubber case he'd selected – which was ridiculous, because a phone that cost the same as a _used car_ needed a proper case, and it wasn't like having Captain America's shield on hers made hers any more effective. 

He shut her up by buying her a burger, fries, and a shake at the diner around the corner, where he'd worked as a busboy before landing the gig in maintenance and settling down. "Hey, Danny," Vito said, coming out from the kitchen and giving him a painful clap on the back with one of his meaty hands.

"Hey Vito, this is Mindy, my new boss." It was better to be up front about things and not let anybody think he was mooching off her or running around with her, and most of these guys had heard about Christina, even though they'd never met her. "Mindy, this is Vito, my old boss."

"You here to check his references, sweetheart?" Vito asked, helping himself to some of the fries left on Danny's plate, which Danny had been saving for Mindy.

"Now that you mention it, Vito, yeah. What did you think of his work ethic?"

Vito grinned and Danny buried his face in his hands. "Ah, the kid'll work his fingers to the bone for you, he'll be straight with you, and he'll even step in and cover for you on days you don't feel so hot. But. Don't ever expect service with a smile – it just don't come natural to him, God love him."

Thinking the worst was over, he lifted his head, just in time for Mindy to gasp as if shocked by Vito's words and reach over to squeeze his cheeks together. "But he's got a smile that lights up the room, Vito! Look at this face!"

Vito busted into his belly-laugh with an "I like this one!" and Mindy let go of him. Danny ostentatiously worked his jaw and rubbed his cheeks, all of which Mindy blithely ignored in favor of whispering smugly in his ear.

"See, I told you I was good at reading people." While Vito was wiping his eyes, Danny saw Mindy slip a hundred-dollar bill under her empty plate. She must have anticipated Vito's next words – "no charge for you two" – Danny thought; damn, she _was_ good.

*

They bought a pad and pen from a stationery store that looked to be on its last legs – of course Mindy chose the pad with pink sheets and a butterfly on the cover, so he stepped in to make sure that the pen at least would be properly useful and not just decorative – and found a bench in Bryant Park.

When he opened the pad and rested it on his knee, she sighed like a kid faced with summer reading. "Is this really necessary, Danny? Why can't we just go look at places and decide what we like?"

"If you go with a list in mind, you'll spend less time and save yourself a lot of aggravation," he said. He titled the page _Mindy's Place_ and wrote a numeral one on the first line. "Okay, go."

"Well, it has to be in Manhattan," she said, smiling dreamily into space. "Every romantic comedy worth watching is set in Manhattan."

"Doesn't one of them have 'Seattle' right in the title?" he asked, chewing on the pen instead of writing – that one was a given.

"Eww, oral fixation much?" she asked, batting the pen away from his mouth. "Don't even pretend that you haven't seen _Sleepless in Seattle_. Okay, um, I don't know. Hardwood floors?"

"Do you even get the point of this list? What are the things you absolutely have to have?"

"Well, you should contribute too, instead of just critiquing!" she said.

"Fine. Two bedrooms, obviously. Do you want your own bathroom?" The eyeroll she gave him was lengthy and elaborate. "Careful. Your face might get stuck like that. Okay, two full baths. I like to cook, so a real kitchen, not just a stove shoved up against a wall."

"You cook, Danny?" she asked, looking up at him through her eyelashes and burying her smile in his shoulder. "There is no escape for you, my friend."

He didn't shrug her off, and she wrapped her arms more securely around his. "And we should have a room where we can study. Not sitting in front of the TV and trying to get work done. I mean a real space with a table –"

"Oh, and WiFi enabled, and we need the good cable package, and we have to be within delivery range of decent restaurants."

"Yes, now you're getting it!" he said, writing as quickly as he could.

"And a room for your music," she said. "We'll get a piano."

He looked at her, touched that she'd remembered seeing him hauling around Brady Caldwell's old keyboard.

Of course she couldn't leave well enough alone. "Plus a stable for our unicorns, and an indoor pool, and a secret tunnel to Bloomingdale's –"

"Within walking distance of a good grocery store," he said loudly. "A park nearby. Close to subway lines. Hookups for a washer and a dryer. Gas heating. Double-paned windows."

"It's amazing, Danny," she said. "You look like a hot young dude, but you sound like an eighty-seven-year-old man."

"I work with what I got," he said, flipping the page to keep writing.

*

Even without any major edits, the list – which had been retitled _Mindy and Danny's Rockin' Pad_ – led them to a brownstone that had just gone on the market. Of course he was there for all of the engineers' inspections and making up and revising the punch-list and the rest of it, but it was like he'd been doused in freezing water when they were at the bank, getting a certified check for the sale price, and the bank manager said his signature was needed too on any substantial withdrawal from their joint account.

"What the hell is going on in that head of yours?" he hissed when the guy left them alone. "Have people been so fantastic to you that you think, this guy I met crying on the sidewalk seems okay, I think I'll give him access to _millions of dollars_ because I have a _feeling_ he won't rip me off!"

She reached out and grabbed his hand. "Breathe, Danny. It's not my only account." He sighed in relief and let his head loll on his neck. "It's just my major one," she said, and he put his head down on the table in defeat. Her hand on the crown of his head felt good – warm and strong and soft – and he liked the care she took in weaving her fingers into his hair, gently petting. "You're number three."

"Number three what?" he asked, his voice bouncing weirdly off the fake wood of the table. "People you've induced to coronaries? Today, I mean?"

"Number three on the list of people who've been fantastic to me," she said, bending down so her chin was on the table and their faces were on the same level, and he rolled a bit so he could see her soft profile out of the corner of his eye. "It was my dad, then Steve, and now you. That's it."

That wasn't right at all. "Everybody should be fantastic to you," he said, dismayed.

"I know, right?"

* * *

"Now what, Danny, the water's boiling!" Mindy said, darting back from the stove like the pot of water was about to reach up insistent arms to pull her into its depths. 

"So add the pasta now," he said, continuing to shred the radicchio from the weekend greenmarket.

"What, all at once? Won't it splash?"

"Maybe," he allowed, which didn't seem to calm her down any. "Get ready to stir, cause you don't want clumps of pasta."

"Right," she said, and saluted him.

"I swear this isn't that hard, Min. You got your colander in the sink and a cup to keep some of the cooking water?"

"Does it look like I do, Martha Stewart?" 

"Temper, temper," he said. "Now scooch."

"Oh, you're taking over? Thank god," she said, reaching for the ties at the waist of her apron.

He pressed her hands against the small of her back and stepped close so his hips were brushing up against hers; he had to get into her space to make her realize he was absolutely serious. "You're staying put," he ordered. "I'm making parmesan lace on the other front burner, that's all."

"Dannnny," she whined.

"Minnndy," he responded. "Stir." He stepped back from her and picked up the block of parmesan and the grater.

They worked together in silence for about thirty seconds, which was the longest he thought she'd ever stayed silent. "Hey, Danny, don't college kids basically live on pasta?"

"Pretty much," he said, remembering Richie reporting back that it was the only thing in the dining hall that tasted even vaguely like it was supposed to, even if the sauce was clearly from a can.

"So you're giving in to peer pressure? I'm so disappointed in you, Castellano."

"We should, uh, we should talk about that. College, I mean," he said, eyes fixed on the cheese browning into what looked like a round snowflake.

"Did you take any classes anywhere, or are you starting from scratch?" Mindy asked, peering into the pot. "This isn't the kind of pasta you throw, is it?"

"What? No. You shouldn't need to throw anything anywhere to see if it's done. You'll know. A good cook knows."

"So, did you?"

"No," he admitted. "Ma got sick when I was a year from finishing high school so I got a couple jobs right away."

"And Richie?" she asked.

"Richie got into U of F and that was that. He was just a kid."

"I know," she said, even though she'd never met the kid, which seemed strange to him. "I think it's done."

"Give it another minute," he said, flipping the lacy sheet of cheese out of the pan and moving the pan to the unoccupied back burner. "What about you? You got any credits to transfer?"

"I'm not gonna bother, they were so long ago." She was hunching slightly, and he knew there was nothing so fascinating about cooking noodles that she needed to pay that much attention. 

Danny took a deep breath to get his ass in gear; there was no excuse for letting her do all of the listening and caring. Being fantastic to her didn't just mean letting her be fantastic to him. He rested a hand on the back of her neck and swept it down to the ties on her apron and back up again. "You know you can talk to me, right? Tell me how come you didn't get to go to college?" 

"It was just timing," she said, not really softening. He did the hand-swoop again and she turned just enough to get her arms around him. He turned off all the burners and held her. "After my mom died, it was just my dad and me for so long, but he kept saying I should apply wherever I wanted, that we'd get to see each other over Christmas and summer breaks, and then, on the same day, I got letters from all four of my schools, and I got in, Danny, I got into all of them." He had a sneaking suspicion she was using his t-shirt as a tissue, but he couldn't bring himself to mind. "I was still trying to decide where to go when, a week later, he had a stroke, a fatal one, and it was just me."

"You didn't have any family around?" he asked. Shit, he'd at least had Ma and Richie to come home to between shifts. 

"None in America, nobody I was close to," she said. "There was enough money in the bank that I could take some basic classes and get certified as a home-care worker, so no blow-off classes like Art History 101 or anything like that."

"You don't have to miss out anymore," he said. "I'll take it with you."

She choked a laugh into his damp shirt. "That I'd pay to see."

"You are, you lunatic," he reminded her. He leaned back and she tipped her head back too, her wet face shining. "I could see you as a home-care worker. You'd be really good at that."

"I miss it sometimes. I miss Steve." 

"Steve was one of your clients?" he asked. She nodded and scrubbed at her face with the kitchen towel, which he took as his cue to let go of her, drain the pasta, and finish assembling their meal. "You wanna tell me about him?" he asked quietly. All he could think about was the fact that her list of people who'd been good to her hadn't included a single boyfriend.

"His name was Steve Rogers," she said, clearly waiting for a reaction.

"Okay," he said, stirring the garlic cream sauce he'd had bubbling on the back burner and the shredded radicchio into the pasta. "Here," he said, gesturing at the plate with the browned cheese, "break that up into pieces the size of a silver dollar."

She reached for the plate automatically, but stayed focused on his face. " _Steve Rogers_ , Danny."

"I heard you."

"Oh my god. You have been deprived of Captain America."

"What?"

"Steve Rogers is Captain America's name."

"Like his secret identity? Throw the cheese in."

"It's not a secret." She tipped the plate's contents into the pot. "That's it, we're breaking in the new TV tonight, and we're watching _Captain America_."

"But I was gonna watch _Die Hard_ ," he protested.

"But Chris Evans is crazy bangable."

"So's Bruce Willis!" he said. "Wait, what does 'crazy bangable' mean?"

"Danny!" she said, laughing again, and _he_ had done that, had finally taken some of the weight off her shoulders. She shouldn't have been on her own so long, poor kid.

*

"So even though I DVR'd it, every day, there's a new excuse not to watch _Die Hard_ with me. What, are you afraid you'll love it too much and throw all your romantic comedies away?"

"Yeah, that's it, Danny. Suck it up, tonight's a _Clueless_ night."

"Give me one reason why that's a movie anyone over the age of twelve would want to watch."

"Two words, my friend: Paul. Rudd."

"Who?"

"Danny, seriously, did you only recently acquire your senses of sight and hearing? How can you not know who Paul Rudd is?"

"Is he on your 'crazy bangable' list?"

She actually took him seriously, the little nutjob. "Hmm, no. He's not _crazy_ bangable. More like _delicious_ bangable."

"Is that better or worse?" he asked, wondering why the hell he even wanted to know.

"Duh, they're equal. 'Bangable' is a tier." 

"I give up," he said, just as the movie started.

*

"Done!" she said triumphantly, putting down her pink pen. Other than the fact that hers was color-coded – and if there was an actual logic behind the code, he'd eat the NYU course catalog – and his was black-and-white, they were identical. It wasn't that they had to be joined at the hip; it just made sense, they'd agreed, having a study buddy as they both eased back into school and tried to get their basic requirements, plus Art History 101, out of the way. "We should celebrate."

The cherrywood table in the study was strewn with papers and folders, and Mindy had, as usual, dressed for the occasion, wearing a little polka-dotted cardigan and some non-prescription glasses that only emphasized the brightness of her eyes. He didn't think he would ever understand how her mind worked. "Let's go dancing," he said.

Her face lit up. "Yes!" she said. "We are going to close the place down!"

He ordered in instead of cooking, and they hit Tan Tru late enough that the place was in full swing. He liked that Mindy never pulled the don't-you-know-who-I-am card to get in, even though he was a little bothered that all of the bouncers she smiled at smiled right back; it was totally unprofessional of them. The strappy pink thing she was wearing shone under the lights, serving as a homing beacon for every sleaze in the place to try to feel her up, so he held out an arm and tucked her in close. She curled in so her back was pressed up against his front, draped her arm on top of his, and they moved, the music pounding everything out of his head so that all he could do was be with her, in that moment, and not let go.

*

"I can never decide between pancakes and waffles," Mindy said as she slumped dramatically in the diner booth.

"Mmm," he agreed, looking for a waitress who would hand him a gallon-sized vat of coffee; he was getting too old for this dance-until-dawn thing, but Mindy had a way of talking him around. 

"Danny," she said seriously. "That was your cue." He cocked an interrogative eyebrow at her. "I said, 'I can never decide between pancakes and waffles,' and _you_ were going to say?"

"Oh! I was gonna say, you order one, I'll order the other, and we'll split them both." He nodded, feeling very pleased with himself. "Except I want eggs."

"Baby, I'll make you eggs any time you like," Mindy said, giving him the finger-guns.

"Yeah? We haven't gone over how to make eggs." Belatedly, he wondered if she'd been quoting something.

"I can _read_ , Danny," she said, with great dignity. "I can follow a recipe."

"Then you should know I can make you pancakes whenever," he responded.

" _Blueberry_ pancakes?" she asked hopefully.

"Let's get out of here," he said, catching her hand across the table.

She tucked up against him on the subway, shivering in the relentless A/C, and he kept his arm around her the whole way home, sharing heat in a long line down their sides and thighs. The early-morning air was warming slowly, and he caught their reflection in the storefront windows, a girl in bubblegum pink and a guy next to her who didn't shine nearly as bright.

He was so busy looking at her that it took her gasp to get him to understand something was wrong. He followed her gaze to their stoop. Standing there was a man with a bouquet of what had to be two dozen pink roses. "Tom," he heard her say under her breath, and felt her body stiffen even as her hand went up and she started straightening her messy hair.

*

This Tom guy stood there, draped along the railing of their house like he'd been invited, and watched them, smiling, as they walked up the stairs. Mindy stumbled a little on the third step, and Danny caught her and left his arm around her waist; the guy had bad news written all over him, and he had to be one of the schmuck exes who hadn't made Mindy's list of three trustworthy men.

Mindy squeezed his arm but gave him a look that he couldn't quite read. Was he supposed to be just her escort for the night, or her roommate, or her bodyguard, or her boyfriend, or what? He dropped his arm and took a step toward the guy, still not sure if he was gonna shake his hand or pop him one in that punchable face, when he saw the bag at Tom's feet.

"I caught the redeye," Tom said. "I missed you so much, babe."

Right. Danny shouldered his way past to unlock the front door.

"Tom, it's, uh, good to see you!" he heard Mindy say. "Do you want to come in?"

Danny went straight to the kitchen and tortured himself by waiting to hear what would happen next. He'd been about to make pancakes, hadn't he? He'd have kicked off his shoes, rolled up his sleeves, and made her blueberry pancakes, topping them with warmed-up blueberry jam for her and maple syrup for himself, and then he might even have dropped into his bed still sticky from the sugar and happy from the day they'd had. Danny stared at her course schedule, held against the fridge with his Verrazano Bridge magnet, and listened to their voices get closer.

"Not a day goes by –" Tom said, and Danny, leaning up against the wall of the kitchen closest to the living room, rolled his eyes, until Mindy interrupted Tom's poetic nonsense.

"Did you want some coffee? Water?" Danny grinned. That was not the tone of someone being swept off her feet by the one that got away.

"N- no, Mindy. I want _you_."

"Tom," she said quietly, like that was all she'd been wanting to hear, and Danny fidgeted. He wasn't about to let Tom run him off, but there was such a thing as giving Mindy her space; he peeked out and saw them standing near the coffee table, Tom reaching out to pull her close.

"Hey, I'm gonna go check on the boiler," Danny said, brushing by close enough that her hair fluttered. Let Tom figure out their relationship from that little proclamation, indicating that he lived there too, he thought; choke on it, Tom.

*

The basement was cooler than the rest of the house, but the air was still heavy and thick. Danny did a couple of laps, patting the walls and throwing punches into the air; being an ass who lashed out with his fists still came way too easily to him. So Mindy came into money and that guy up there thought he just had to snap his fingers to get her back? No fucking way. She'd had nothing and no one and had made her dreams come true on her own – she was living in New York, about to start college, had some "bangable" guy on her TV every night, and . . . and what? She was his friend, the best friend he'd ever had, and that hadn't exactly been in the cards. Maybe she did want to be loved, and maybe she wanted this Tom guy to do the loving.

The boiler had been brand-new when he'd installed it and didn't need servicing, but he thought better with a tool in his hand. He picked up his favorite wrench and hefted the weight of it, felt his hand curling around it like it'd been made for him.

He nearly dropped it when his phone rang.

"Richie! What's wrong, why are you up so early?"

"Nothing's wrong, Danny. Hello. Breathe," Richie said, the sarcastic little shit. "I know you're up early most days and I wanted to talk to you as soon as I could."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I'm happy. And I know you're happy when I'm happy, so here I am, spreading cheer."

"You're _here_?"

"Just got off the plane," Richie said, and Danny wondered if everybody he and Mindy had ever known would be getting on a flight to New York imminently. "You want to meet at Ma's or at your place?"

He had to think. "Uh, get on the E – no, catch a cab." Wait, what the hell was wrong with him – he couldn't just start throwing Mindy's money around. "No, get on the E, transfer to the 1, and I'll meet you near Mazzini." Richie groaned. "Don't argue with me. I'll see you in an hour."

He was still clutching the wrench like it was a security blanket. He slipped it back inside his toolbox and headed up the stairs, trying not to think what it would mean if he found the living room empty and her bedroom door closed.

He didn't have to after all; Mindy and Tom were both still in the living room, on the couch. She had her knees up, her arms around her bent legs, and Danny knew that the position was not just a way to avoid contact but also an attempt to warm herself up. Tom, of course, hadn't caught on, and the jackass was leaning his arm against one of the blankets they'd bought for when late-night movie-watching turned into spending the night on the luxuriously comfortable couch. They both looked up when he walked into the room, and her face was so worn out that Danny had to rip the blanket out from under Tom's elbow.

"Richie's here," he said quietly into her limp curls when he was close enough to drape the thick cotton over her. 

"He's here?" she asked, perking up. "Are you bringing him home?"

The rush he got from hearing her say the word so casually meant that he had to have gotten it wrong; she had to mean Staten. "Yeah." 

"Awesome! I have to take a shower and get ready!" she said, and he couldn't doubt her any longer. She'd meant here, their home, and she wasn't going anywhere with Tom, whose face was just beginning to pinch into a disbelieving frown.

"Yeah, me too." She grinned at him, her full-on Mindy-grin, and he decided he was mean enough to mess with Tom just a little. "Go get the water running, babe; I'll be there in a minute."

"Danny," she said, her voice caught between shock and laughter.

"Scoot," he said. "I'll make sure Tom finds the door."

*

She really had showered in his bathroom, the lunatic, and now she smelled like his soap and his dandruff shampoo and somehow it worked on her, like maybe those scents weren't as masculine as the packaging had made him think. His towel had been damp when he'd wrapped it around his hips, and that'd felt weirdly intimate.

"Whoa," she said, mid-yawn. "The Castellano genes are top-shelf."

"What?"

"That hot dude smiling at you is your brother, right?" He turned his head and saw Richie, not waiting patiently by the bust of Mazzini, but carrying a duffel in his hand and racing toward him. Richie dropped his bag and caught him up in a kiss and hug.

It had been months since he'd really talked to the kid, and Danny couldn't get his arms to loosen up. Richie didn't seem to be in a hurry to stop hugging him either. "What's the good word?" he asked, arms still full of his baby brother.

"I'm finishing school early," Richie said, "and I –"

"Hey, wait," Danny said. "Sorry, this is –" He looked over to where he'd seen her last, but didn't see Mindy. He pivoted sharply and there she was, sitting on a nearby bench.

"Sorry!" she said, scampering up, pushing the hood of her purple sweatshirt down. "But Castellano hugging is kind of a spectator sport, and I didn't want to get in the way. Hi!" she said, sketching a wave at Richie. "I'm Mindy."

"It's nice to meet you, Mindy," Richie said, like the good kid he was, and Danny felt pride swell his chest. This, right here, was proof that he didn't fuck everything up.

Mindy's stomach growled, and Richie's chimed in too. "They didn't feed us on the flight," Richie said apologetically.

" _Someone_ was supposed to make me pancakes this morning, but didn't," Mindy said. "I might allow that someone to take me to Vito's for all the pancakes I can eat. If someone's brother is cool with that?"

"Absolutely," Richie said. "Danny, come on, get the lead out, the lady's starving."

*

"What the hell, Danny?" Richie said as soon as Mindy was out of earshot, off to the ladies' room to wash the powdered sugar off her face. "Who is this girl, and what happened with Christina?"

Danny had always meant to figure out what to tell Richie about Mindy, but he'd never gotten around to it. The Christina part was easier to tackle, because that was how much his life made any kind of sense these days. "Christina cheated on me. I found them, and I walked out."

Richie slid an arm around him and took a long sip of his coffee; it looked like he was buying himself time to formulate his next question. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Danny shrugged. "I didn't want to do it over the phone, and you had school and all this other stuff going on, and it didn't make sense to drag you away from all of that just because I fucked up." 

"How does Christina cheating mean you fucked up?" Richie sounded disappointed, of all things, and it was too much.

Danny looked up, and there was Mindy, heading back to their booth, and he'd never been more grateful for her sense of timing. "If I got home fries, would you guys split them with me?" she asked. "I need something salty to balance out the sweet."

"You should try Danny's potato-chip pie," Richie said, and Mindy turned big, wounded eyes on him for having held out on her.

*

"Not a word of this to Ma," Danny said, when he and Richie were on the ferry. "She doesn't know about Christina."

"Or Mindy," Richie said, and Danny sort of nodded. "So tell me about Mindy."

"Mindy –" he started, then stopped, considering. "Well, you met her. She's like a force of nature." Richie was shaking his head and frowning. "What? She kind of planted herself in my life and, I don't know, it made as much sense as anything else." Richie still looked unconvinced, and Danny cast about for something to tip the scales. He smacked Richie's chest with the back of his hand. "Hey, you'll like this. I'm starting college in a couple of months. NYU. Mindy and me, 'non-traditional students.'"

"Alright, alright," Richie said, his hands up in surrender, "I might not see how, but she's obviously a good influence on you. College, man!"

Danny smiled and said, "What's this about you graduating early, brainiac?" He only half-heard Richie's response, wondering instead how Richie could have missed Mindy's gravitational pull.

He got to hear the whole story again anyway, because Ma was so excited to have her baby boy back that she made him go through it a couple of times. Danny looked at them both, smiling at each other as candlelight flickered on their faces, and thought that he hadn't seen Ma looking so good in a very long time. He wasn't going to spoil the moment by talking about what he'd lost.

*

When he got home in the morning, Mindy was sitting at the kitchen counter, disconsolately eating something out of a plastic baggie. He'd kicked his shoes off at the door, and he'd been not exactly tiptoeing but still pretty quiet, so he was surprised when she spun around on her stool, beaming.

"Danny! You're home!" she said. "I've been missing that weird rattling sound you make when you breathe."

He laughed. "I've been missing . . . having all my weird noises cataloged, I guess." He peered at the bag, but he still couldn't figure out what her fingers were dexterously picking from the bag and popping into her mouth. "What are you eating?"

She pulled a face that was probably supposed to get his guard down. "I figured I'd try blueberry pancakes myself. It was not . . . a notable success. However! I have discovered the greatest snack of all time, Danny. _Frozen blueberries._ Try one."

He picked a plump one from the few on her outstretched palm and popped it in his mouth. It was intensely sweet and deliciously cold, and he snaked his arm around her to get to the bag. "Nuh-uh, mister," she said, laughing and holding the bag at arm's length, trying to spin away from him. "Mine, mine, mine," she sang, and it hit him then, after a day spent with his ma and brother, that it was unfair that this girl wasn't part of a big, boisterous family, that she was alone. 

He couldn't ever be enough for her, but he could at least try to make it up to her and treat her like his kid sister. 

He gave her a noogie, and she shrieked with laughter. "Get off me, you weirdo!" she chirped, looking flushed and delirious with delight. "Dannnny!" She surrendered, finally, dunking her hand back in the bag and presenting a generous handful to him; he had her pinned against his front, his arms crossed over her chest, so he dipped his head to nibble them directly off her palm. "Oh my god, it's like being at a petting zoo," she said. 

He laughed and grunted, letting her go to pound his chest like a cartoon gorilla.

"Easy there, Donkey Kong," she said. "You'll never guess what I got from Amazon."

He fell asleep against her shoulder while watching _Die Hard_ , but he woke up with his head in her lap and her fingers playing absently in his hair, the giant black TV off and showing only their reflection.

*

"You know," Mindy said, twirling a lock of hair around her finger, and he could never get why she needed curlers, because now, when she hadn't brushed her hair or even changed out of her nightie, it tumbled down her back like she was in a shampoo commercial, "this is not what I imagined my life in New York would be like." She sounded like she was still half-asleep, her face soft and her eyelashes all tangled. 

"Oh, yeah?" Danny asked, hearing the first few drops of rain hit the skylight. So much for going for a run in the park.

"Yeah, when they told me I'd won, that I was going to have money in the bank for the rest of my life, I, I don't know, I guess I pictured myself descending on Manhattan, queen of the socialites, invited to every party, getting targeted by paparazzi, having designers fight over who got to design my gown for the Met Ball, where I'd be rocking some crazy headpiece and looking totally fierce. Like somehow all of this" – she gestured to the length of her body – "would be transformed into centerfold hotness." She shivered a bit when thunder boomed out. He scrounged around for the fuzzy socks she'd kicked off the night before and handed them to her. "I forgot that I don't know how to get into that world," she said, drawing on the socks and wiggling her toes.

"You still can," he said, her dreamy face making him say the dumbest thing possible. Of course she could – she didn't need his permission. "I mean –"

"I know," she said, digging her toes under his thigh, even though they couldn't possibly still be cold. "But this is better. I never let myself dream of having a family again."

Something in his chest went whoosh and he found himself smiling at her like an idiot. 

"Danny?" she said, more tentatively, and that should have warned him, because when did she ever pause before rushing in? "Do you want me to hire somebody to find your dad?"

"No!" he said. She hadn't meant to sucker-punch him; it was like she'd tripped and instinctively grabbed him and they'd both fallen down the stairs, with her landing on top of him and him taking the full brunt of the fall. He had to think of it like that. "No." She was only trying to help, and there was no doubt in his mind that she had a heart big enough to forgive anyone who walked out on her, but he was nowhere near that level of enlightenment.

He'd take her to meet Ma, and then she'd understand everything Alan Castellano had walked out on, and why he couldn't just walk back in.

*

"Ma, this is Mindy," Danny said. "Mindy, Ma – Angelina Castellano."

"It's so nice to meet you," Mindy said, and he could hear her confusion about how to address his mother.

"She goes by Angie," he said, and Mindy nodded but didn't test it out. Good thing, because Ma was giving him a look like she had when he'd stolen skates from Castorini's Sporting Goods, and he immediately felt guilty without knowing why. Ma was entirely capable of yelling at him in front of company, so he had to act fast. "I'm gonna make some iced tea," he said, knowing Ma would want to do it herself, so he led the way into the kitchen and hoped that the walls would somehow be thicker now than they’d ever been before.

"How could you bring her here?" Ma asked, outrage sparking in her voice even before the door stopped swinging. "Bad enough you walk out on your wife, but you bring the girl you're stepping out with to my house, and I'm supposed to just pretend that this is all fine –"

"What?" he asked. "Mindy's not – that's not – Ma, you really think –?"

"What am I supposed to think? Christina you never bring here, but suddenly, there's someone named Mindy on my couch!"

Christina had never once come out to Staten with him, and Ma didn't like to make the schlep to the city. "Mindy's my friend, Ma. She took me in when Christina cheated on me and I had to leave." That was underselling it, but it was simple enough to understand.

"How come I never heard of this friend before?" Ma asked, before the rest of what he'd said hit her. "Christina _cheated_? Oh, baby," she said, drawing his head down and kissing his head and cheek, like he was four years old again. "My sweet boy. She never deserved you."

He pulled himself free. "How can you say that? You loved her!"

"No, baby, I loved that she made you happy. I loved that you looked at her and saw your babies' mama. You think I thought _anyone_ was good enough for my Danny?" She held his head between her strong hands, every callus on them familiar to him. "You're not with this Mindy?" she asked, and he shook his head, eyes fixed on the crucifix pendant he and Richie had bought her years ago. "Who is it, then? Who's making you look happy?"

"I look happy?"

"Who's the girl?" she persisted.

"The only girl is Mindy," he said, and she gave him a long, hard look.

"Weren't you making iced tea?" she asked, finally.

"Not for Mindy – she only likes that mix crap."

"With all the sugar?" Ma asked, horrified. "Go, sit with your guest. I'll make coffee – will she at least drink that?"

"Only with biscotti," he admitted, and Ma reached for the tin.

He found Mindy looking at his wedding portrait, hanging on the wall next to Richie's high school graduation picture, and he looked at it for the first time in years, seeing Christina's slender body draped in white lace, his hand clutching at her waist, the collar of his rented tux gaping slightly. There'd been a running joke that they looked like all of the top-of-the-cake bride-and-groom figurines, all of them for some reason being a dark-haired guy and a light-haired girl. They'd looked like something out of a fairy tale, apparently.

The photographer had loved Christina, Danny remembered; they'd talked for what felt like hours about how best to compose the portraits, with Christina saying she didn't want to end up looking like Barbie next to Ken. He remembered not understanding a word of their easy conversation, too amazed that she still hadn't come to her senses and left him to do more than smile at her and fall more in love every time she caught his eye and smiled back.

"Hey," he said, and Mindy turned around, searching his face.

"Did you ask her?"

"Ask Ma? Ask her what?" he asked, wondering if her question meant she really hadn't heard any of Ma's accusations.

"About your dad, Danny," Mindy said.

"She's better off without him," he said.

Mindy nodded but kept her eyes fixed on him. She had a little bit of that Ma look, he realized, enough to make him feel guilty even when he'd done nothing wrong. "Okay, cool," she said, and then Ma came in from the kitchen with coffee and biscotti on a tray and they all sat down together, Ma next to Mindy on the couch, relegating him to the wing chair.

Danny saw Ma eyeing the clock and remembered she needed to take her pills. "Dan –" she said, gesturing, but he'd already gotten up to fetch the big box, identical to the one she used for buttons and pins when she did the mending.

"Angie," Mindy said, cutting into Ma's story about what Stevie Guarancini was up to, breaking his poor mother's heart, "sorry, but do you have indigestion?"

"Yes, but it's nothing like Minna's. You remember, Danny, how that woman suffered?"

"It might be because you're taking anti-inflammatories and anti-coagulants together," Mindy said, pointing to a couple of compartments in Ma’s pill-box. "Those are contraindicated – I'm surprised your doctor prescribed both."

"No," Ma said, "Dr. Ortolini – oh, did I tell you, Danny, she's out on maternity leave with her third, God bless her – prescribed the pink ones, and that Dr. DiBattista, the big-shot who's too good to look at you when he's talking to you, prescribed these yellow ones."

"That's irresponsible!" Mindy said angrily, and Danny would not have bet a penny on Tony DiBattista if Mindy ever found him. He looked at her, still rooting around in the pill-box, biting her lip in concentration; she looked different when she was really thinking and not just sassing him or drooling over some movie actor. Mindy looked up at Ma and the two of them went through every pill in the box, rearranging and redistributing them as they talked.

"So you're a doctor, darling?" Ma asked after a pause, shifting gears like only she could do, laying a hand on Mindy's arm. Danny saw Mindy hesitate and finally look up from the pill-box with damp eyes. He caught himself holding his breath, hoping Ma would see it too, how much Mindy missed having a mother.

"I wanted to be," Mindy said. "I was just a home-care worker."

"Still better than that Anthony DiBattista," Ma said with a sniff, then squeezed Mindy's hand and smiled at him.

* * *

This was a bad idea, because both of them were way too competitive. But she'd said she wanted to be out and about in the city before school started the next day, and they'd ended up in Bryant Park again, this time heading for the ping-pong tables and finding one that wasn't in use.

"Sixteen-fourteen, me," he said, preparing to serve.

"Excuse you," Mindy said, hands on her hips. "Cheater, it's fifteen-all."

" _I_ don't have to cheat," was all he said, letting his tone say the rest.

"Daniel Delusional Castellano, you have _got_ to be kidding me."

"Sweetheart, the only game I'm playing is ping-pong," he said, letting his words walk with a little Staten swagger. "And I'm winning."

"Okay, enough. Just serve."

He whipped the ball at her and she returned it with interest. Mindy crowed every time she scored a point, and they waged war.

It was satisfying to beat her – he got to pick the movies for the next month. It was even better when they teamed up to beat a couple of cocky kids in a rousing game of doubles, even if the only reward was listening to Mindy's ridiculous, chirpy trash-talk and watching a grin grow on her face, lit by the last rays of the setting sun.

*

"Ugh, I'm already exhausted," Mindy said, pressing her face into his shoulder.

"We're just sitting there, listening to these guys talk about the rest of the semester," he pointed out; if she was feeling nervous, there was no point in saying the same thing, because two people panicking over how much they'd bitten off wouldn't help anything. It was only the first day. "Come on, just Art History left," he prodded, shrugging his shoulder to wiggle her face a little.

"Never give a pep talk again," she instructed him, doing a brisk about-face to walk toward their last class.

Danny laughed. "I shouldn't have to. You're the boss, right?"

"Damn straight," Mindy said. She wrenched open the auditorium doors and Danny waited, knowing by now that she needed to get all of her first impressions off her chest. "Danny, this professor – you have to see him. He looks like if Voldemort and Jason Statham had, like, an evil baby."

"What does that even mean?" he asked, shouldering her aside to get a look. He froze when he caught sight of the man standing at the podium, adjusting his glasses and clicking a remote at the screen instead of at the projector. "That's him – that's the guy."

"What guy?" Mindy asked, squeezing her head past his chest. "Oh," she said, then caught hold of his hand. "Come on, we'll switch sections. We don't need a hairless cat teaching us art history. Or" – she looked at him, her face serious, her thumb drawing circles on his skin –"we don't have to take art history at all. We're carrying a full load anyway."

"No," he said. This was pretty much the only thing she'd asked him for, and he wasn't gonna punk out. "Let's find a different section."

"Fuck you, Glenn Jennison," Mindy said. "I bet you're not even a real Ph.D." She led the way to the registrar's office, where she had already acquired a fan club. That was a habit of hers, he'd found, even if she had no idea.

*

He was surprised to find that school came pretty easily – he certainly didn't remember being an honor student back in high school. But he'd had baseball, a couple of jobs, and girls to juggle, plus Ma and Richie to take care of on top of everything back then, and now all he had was classes and cooking with Mindy. He was like a monk these days, if monks jerked off; there was no way he was going out looking for anyone when just the thought of going to bed with someone new practically gave him a panic attack.

He wondered why Mindy wasn't looking for someone. She'd had boyfriends, and she deserved someone to make her happy. She didn't even say much about the guys in their classes, at least not when compared with the enthusiastic running commentary she kept up on the men in the movies.

Maybe she just wanted to concentrate on getting her degree and becoming a doctor like she'd dreamt of, back when her dad was alive, or even before her mom died. She nudged him out of his thoughts and back into their bio lab.

"Danny, Danny, have you ever seen anything so gross?" Mindy asked, sounding cheerful rather than disgusted, as she watched their fat white grub writhe on the twig in the examination tray.

"It looks exactly like the glob of lotion you squirt out every morning when you get all dramatic and say, 'As God is my witness, I'll never be ashy again!'"

Her outraged gasp was kind of hilarious. "It does not! Thanks a lot, now I have to find a new, non-white kind of lotion!"

"Good luck with that, weirdo," he said, still setting everything up for their lab.

"Pardon me, might I join you?" he heard, and looked up to see that British guy, Jeremy, leaning over from the next lab station. "My grub has gone a bit peculiar, I'm afraid."

"Sure!" Mindy said, smiling at the guy like nothing could have made her happier. "Jeremy, right?"

"Jeremy Reed. And you are Mindy, I believe. Charmed."

Danny rolled his eyes at the thought of making time over an educational experiment about a worm. The guy clearly thought he was James Bond, but then what was he doing in Bio 101 with the rest of them? "And this is Danny," Mindy said, nudging him, so he nodded politely.

"I'm not quite as charmed to meet you, I must say," Jeremy said, dropping Mindy a flirtatious wink, and Danny knew things were going to get weird when she didn't laugh in the guy's face.

*

"Do you like Jeremy?" Mindy asked, dropping a dollop of strawberry-rhubarb jam on the English muffin Jeremy had left behind and finishing it off.

"He's fine," Danny said. "I told him I'd make him an omelet, didn't I?"

"You did," Mindy agreed, but she wasn't smiling. Guess Jeremy wasn't rocking her world.

"Should I not have? Did you want him out of here quicker?"

"No, that's not it," she said. "I guess I just wanted to make sure you didn't feel weird about having another guy in our kitchen."

It was a little late for that. "You're allowed to date," he said, aware that there was something he was missing.

"We're not dating," she said carefully. Did she mean – oh! "We're just hooking up. He's not looking for a commitment."

"Someone he has to treat nicely, you mean," Danny said, anger building inside him. "And you went for that?"

"It's not as easy as you think, getting what you want," Mindy said quietly. He slid her omelet from the pan and put the plate in front of her. As usual, she let it get cold waiting for him, just so they could eat together; as usual, he split both omelets and ate half her cold one while waiting for his own to cool.

*

"Are you gonna go?" Mindy asked when they got home on Tuesday afternoon. "To the thing?" she pointed with her chin at the flyer he'd stuck in his jacket pocket.

"I don't even know what it is," he said, pulling it out and smoothing the crumpled paper.

"That Jillian girl seemed to really want you to go," she observed, hanging up her jacket and holding a hand out for his. "She basically tackled you on the quad."

"Guess they don't get a lot of people coming out for their experimental theater," he said, reading the flyer Jillian had forced into his hand. "God, this sounds awful. Who wants to see _The Golden Girls_ redone by naked kids?"

"Easy, Grandpa, you're still in your twenties," Mindy said, sounding a little more cheerful; she liked teasing him about his age and reveling in the fact that she was five years younger than him.

"Not for long," he pointed out; thirty was only a few weeks away. He looked up from the flyer to see her wearing her plotting face and pointed at her. "Mindy, no. No party, no buying any expensive gifts."

"Chill, Keith Mars," she said. "I won't buy you anything. Even though I'd be the best sugar mama in the world, basically."

"You're a nutjob," he said, not expecting her face to fall. "What, Min? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said. "I just – I just really miss taking care of someone, that's all."

Was she crazy, that she couldn't see how much care she took of him, even if he wouldn't let her pay for everything? "Wait here," he said, glad that it was Tuesday, because that meant there'd be orchids for sale on Park Avenue. He ran until his heart felt like it would burst out of his chest and slowed when he found the first sidewalk table of potted flowers. Most of the orchids were pink – light and dark – or white, but there was one in the last row that was the yellow of her favorite pajamas with little flecks of the same blue he'd painted her bedroom. Ten bucks and it was his, and he ran home clutching his prize.

She looked up from her homework – she was testing how accurately she'd memorized the periodic table – with a smile so radiant that he wished he'd bought out the whole table.

*

"How do you even know who Spiderman is?" Danny asked. He was not going to put away his newspaper to engage in this ridiculousness, even if it made him smile.

"Because Tobey Maguire is totally adorbs bangable," she said, like that was a completely reasonable response; the sad thing was, he'd kind of expected something along those lines.

"And why were we even talking about Spiderman?" he asked, trying to remember how this whole conversation had started.

"Because I said, don't get mad, and don't get worried that I've been bitten by a radioactive spider, but I'm suddenly displaying super-strength."

"Right," he said, sighing. "How?"

"I was scrubbing the sink in my bathroom – _yes_ , I _scrub_ , Danny, look at my cute little bandana! – and my, um, hand went through the sink."

"What?" He dropped the paper and reached for her hand, remembering at the last second to be gentle. Her arm was round and firm in his grasp, the skin a little reddened but not scraped or broken. "What happened?"

"Danny, I'm giving you as clear a narrative as I can muster," Mindy said. "My hand just went through the sink. I'm like She-Hulk. Rawr."

"So why did you bring up Spiderman?"

"Because I can't remember how Hulk got all Hulky, and I look way better in purple pants anyway."

"Yeah, you do," he said. He glanced up from her arm to her face and felt her pulse, under his fingers, accelerate a little. He frowned. "Are you sure you're okay?" He let go when she nodded. "Good. I'll clear away the broken sink and we'll go get a new one on Saturday."

*

"Danny, long time no see, man!" Hector said when they walked into Home Depot.

"Hey, man," he said, offering his hand while Mindy whispered, "I didn’t know you were famous, Danny!" She looked totally sincere, too, her heart-shaped sunglasses pushed up and her eyes wide. "Yeah," he said, answering Hector, "it’s been a crazy year. I’m not working there anymore."

"Got a better offer?" Hector said, looking at Mindy's hand on his arm, and Danny was abruptly aware of how close they were standing, and how she smelled like his stuff again – he'd declared her bathroom off-limits until he replaced the sink.

"Yeah," he said, and saw her smile out of the corner of his eye. "Take care, Hector." 

He steered Mindy toward the bathroom sinks with a hand on the small of her back, ignoring the smirk she was wearing. 

"Daniel I-Got-This-City-Locked- _Down_ Castellano, did you just say I was a good thing in your life?" she asked, beaming at him.

He'd never been good with words, but she should know in case he got hit by a bus tomorrow. "You're the best thing in my life, Min. Did you want a pedestal or a cabinet sink?"

*

When Jeremy murmured something to Mindy in the middle of Bio about Friday night being date night, Danny didn't let himself look over at either of them. So what if his birthday was tomorrow? All he'd said was that they were going out to Staten and Ma would make a special dinner. He could deal with Jeremy in the morning.

But Mindy said, her voice soft but her tone clear, "But we're not dating, and I'm busy anyway. I can't." 

Danny snuck a peek: Jeremy looked gobsmacked and Mindy looked resolute. It was a good look on her.

He wondered what her big plans were for the night. 

When they got home, she acted like she had no agenda at all. They made spaghetti with onions – he cut the onions and rubbed the tears out of his eyes with his shoulders while she got the pasta going like a pro – and ate, then settled in to do their homework. 

"It feels like cheating," she said, and he looked up, startled. "To use you as my partner when we're filling in Punnett Squares. It's too easy."

It took him a second to get what she meant. There were only brown-eyed, black-haired people in both of their family trees, and their imaginary kids would certainly be the same. "You're not fantasizing about some blue-eyed blond guy, like Captain America?" he teased.

"Not for procreation purposes," she said, finishing the last diagram. "So, big day tomorrow – what's the plan?"

"Nothing big. I told Ma we'd get to Staten around four. I might get up early, go for a run."

"Don't?" she asked.

He sighed, but it was like being a kid again, wondering what the next day would bring. At least she'd promised not to buy him anything, so he could rest easy knowing there wouldn't be one more thing he could never pay her back for waiting for him.

He woke up late – Mindy'd turned off the alarm on his phone, the little sneak – and wandered out to the living room, still in his t-shirt and pajama bottoms. "Danny!" she shrieked, and he turned his head to find her down on the floor, surrounded by wrapping paper scraps and twisted bits of scotch tape. "Get out of here!"

"Sorry, sorry," he said, laughing and putting his hands up. "I'll just sit in my room in the dark until you say it's safe to come out."

"God, you're so _difficult_!" she griped, and he beat a retreat to his room, grinning all the way down the hallway.

Twenty minutes later, there was a knock on his door. He sprawled more comfortably across the bed and pretended he hadn't heard a thing. 

"You suck, Danny!" Mindy said. He waited. "Come on, this is heavy!" she said and he scrambled for the door. 

"Gotcha!" she said, bounding in and holding a tray. "That damsel-in-distress bit gets you every time, huh?" 

"What every time?" he asked. She'd made him breakfast in bed, the omelet perfectly fluffy and the toast just the right shade of brown and the orange juice freshly squeezed. "Are you kidding me with this?"

"Yes, Danny. I made this for myself, just to eat it in front of you. Dummy." 

"Yeah, okay," he said, "I just wanted to say that this is perfect. This is exactly what I wanted."

"Really?" she asked, smiling. He took the tray from her, bracing for her hug. Some of the orange juice slopped over from the force of her squeeze. "Happy birthday, Danny," she said, kissing his cheek.

He turned his head and gave her a little peck on her smiling mouth. Setting the tray down, he pushed the blankets out of the way and climbed back into bed. "Come on," he said, "help me out here. I'll make round two."

Before she got on the bed, she dug around in the pocket of her robe – this one was ridiculously soft, besides being the color of a Creamsicle, and he thought that one of these days he'd have to build her an extra closet just for her robes and pajamas, or maybe convert the third floor from living quarters to storage space – and pulled out a small package, poorly wrapped.

"I didn't buy you anything," she said before he could even voice his protest. "I've been wanting you to have this, and you can't say no on your birthday."

"I think you mean I can't say no to you on your birthday."

"Both, actually. And in general," she said. "Here. Please."

He dropped the toast, wiped his hands on his hips, and took the package. It fit easily in his palm and it was heavier than it looked, but not like a brick or anything. It would be just like her to get something he'd said he liked, pretend it was for herself, and then give it to him, but he couldn't remember expressing an interest in anything recently; he'd learned his lesson.

She was really terrible at wrapping things; there were twisted crumples of tape everywhere. Danny looked up to see her chewing nervously on a slice of his toast, her eyes huge. He reached out, pulled a stray bit of tape from her hair, and stuck it on the discarded wrapping paper. "Nutjob," he said fondly. The box was plain and black, providing no clues.

When he opened the box, the scent of cologne rose up, and Danny saw a watch inside, resting on a thick cotton pad. It had a square gold face that said _Titan_ and no numbers, just little beads of gold. His fingers looked too big and clumsy when he reached for it. "How can I take your dad's watch, Min?" he asked.

She tried to smile, but her eyes were tearing up. "Because I asked you to," she said, taking it from him and clasping it on his wrist. "It suits you."

He grabbed her hands before she could go anywhere. "Thank you," he said, and his lips found the one tear that had spilled onto her cheek.

*

When they got out to Staten, he saw Ma's eyes go right to the watch, but before he could say anything, he was grabbed from behind. He twisted and saw Richie, who hugged him and said, "Mindy flew us up. Happy birthday."

Mindy didn't even have the decency to look guilty. "What?" she said. "I didn't buy you anything."

She had a killer poker face – it turned out that getting Richie to call his old Staten crew and get everybody into a club to dance all night long didn't count as buying him anything either.

It was more fun than he could've imagined, seeing all the guys – his first best friends, his first detention buddies, his first teammates – again, seeing all the girls – his first wet dream, his first kiss, his first rounding the bases – who'd once upon a time gotten him all hot and bothered, and Mindy, in her tight yellow dress, was in the middle of it all, knocking back shots with Stevie and Louie, dancing with Richie and his boyfriend Benny. 

He grabbed her when a killer song came on and didn't let go until his feet were sore.

"Danny!" Mindy protested finally, flushed and laughing, and he followed her outside, where the bass wasn't pounding right through his body and thumping all of his thoughts out of his head. "My hair's a mess," she said, pushing back the curls that had fallen out of place, and he flipped open his wallet and pulled out the flat pack of bobby pins he'd started carrying around because she switched purses so often she couldn't keep track of what was in each. She took her time, pulling a bobby pin free, tucking it into her mouth for safekeeping, winding her hair tight, and finally sliding the pin in place. She did it over and over, and with each repetition, he remembered laughing with her, dancing with her, holding her, feeling a rush when she smiled at him like he was still being fantastic to her and she couldn't imagine him ever being different.

She took her time and he waited for her, waited until she'd pinned her hair back up and patted everything like she was satisfied, before pushing his hands into her hair – dislodging all of those damn pins – and kissing her long and deep.

She tasted like chocolate-cake shots, and he probably tasted like the maple-smoked bourbon she knew he liked, but all he could think of was how lush she felt in his arms, soft and yielding and heated. His hands were cupping her face, her hair spilling over his fingers, and she had her hands on his ass, drawing him closer; he couldn't remember a more spectacular moment in his life. Until she came up for air, her face flushed and her voice sunk to a whisper that got him shivering: "Daniel Darling Castellano," she said, her lips back at his throat, "I was hoping you'd catch on soon."

"I'm here," he said, setting his mouth to hers again and surging forward until her back hit a wall and there was nowhere for him to go except closer to her. He wanted to chase every moan of his name back down her throat, and as Staten fell away around them, leaving the night to envelop them together, he gave in to the temptation.

* * *

"Danny, seriously!" Mindy said. "I'd never have pegged you for such a horndog." She pushed him onto the table in their study – he was glad now he'd insisted on a sturdy one, made of solid wood, not pressboard – and kissed wherever she damn well pleased. "You're insatiable."

She didn't sound too upset about that.

"Yeah, well," he said, gesturing at her, and her face went all soft and delighted again. Like an idiot, he pressed his luck. "You were saying?"

Her mouth left his neck and he felt bereft. "I need to study if I'm gonna finish at the top of the class."

"Whoa, whoa," he said, leaning up on his forearms. "I'm in that class too."

"Yes, and?" she asked, giving him a look over the top of her completely unnecessary glasses.

"So maybe I'll be on top," he said, giving her ass a squeeze for emphasis.

"I do like you there," she said musingly, "but it's not like I'm just gonna roll over and let you have it."

Enough. He was too turned on to keep going with the argument, so he just lifted her back on top of him, where she belonged.

*

"You wouldn't let me get away with saying I want to nail some actress or the character she's playing," Danny pointed out, in an entirely reasonable manner. He knew he was winning the argument when Mindy pouted into the popcorn.

"I'm not saying _I'm_ gonna run off and bang this guy. Objectively speaking, Tom Hardy is ridic bangable. I'm just stating the facts, Danny!"

He couldn't help sounding jealous, because he was. "So we've had crazy, delicious, adorbs, and ridic bangable so far. How many other kinds are there?"

Her eyes widened like she was surprised he was protesting and she stroked her hands down his back, pulling up his thin t-shirt. "It doesn't matter, Danny," she whispered in his ear.

He crossed his arms; he wasn't going to make this too easy for her, and he was keeping his shirt on as long as she was wearing hers. "Why not?"

She swept her tongue into his mouth then, without warning, and kissed him deep and wet. Mindy was unabashedly good at that, uninhibited and honest. "Because, Daniel Love-of-My-Life Castellano, you're _all_ kinds of bangable."

"Prove it," he said, and she turned that halogen-level grin on him, and he was basically doomed. What a way to go.

*

He had no idea how Mindy'd gotten Ma to share her coffee cake recipe, but there it was, in Mindy's curvy handwriting, on the fridge under one of her Tiffany stained-glass magnets.

The knock on the door sounded when she turned on the oven, and they looked at each other for a minute, worried that the oven was making weird sounds.

"It's the door," she said, realizing and pushing him out of the kitchen. "Go. I got this."

She probably did; she could do anything she set her mind to. "I'm going, I'm going," he said, stealing a kiss before he left.

There was a woman with a clipboard on the doorstep, and he braced himself, ready to hear about green energy or abortion rights or something else he and everyone else at NYU agreed with anyway. But she just said, "Daniel Castellano?" When he nodded, she handed him an official-looking envelope that had Ma’s address crossed out and the new one in messy block letters. "I like the flowers," she said, pointing to the window-box of daisies he'd gotten Mindy from the greenmarket over the summer; he was going to have to bring those in before winter weather killed them.

"Who was it?" Mindy asked when he returned to the kitchen.

"Some messenger. She gave me this," he said, holding up the envelope and ripping it open. "Jesus –" he said, taking a step back from the papers spilling on the table. Divorce papers – Christina was suing him for divorce.

He'd pushed all thoughts of her out of his head when he’d walked out, and since then he’d been acting on impulse, letting his feelings determine his actions; all that had done was to put Mindy in the middle. He was such a shit. 

"Hey," Mindy said, dropping the container of sour cream back on the counter next to the mixing bowl. "What is it?"

"Christina," he said.

"Oh," she said. Then she got close and squeezed him so hard he could barely reciprocate. "Don't. Don't sign them yet. We'll find a lawyer, make sure she didn't pull something else." 

"Min –" was all he got out. "I'm so sorry."

"Not your fault, dummy. I knew from the minute I met you that you'd be my best friend. That was out of our hands. _This_ was our choice."

"I love you, Mindy," he said, letting her hold him up, just for a second.

"I know that too," she said. "Top of the class, remember?"

*

They made the call to the lawyer who'd fought to get Mindy her winnings in a short enough time for her to move to Manhattan before she had to renew her old lease. Mindy chatted with the guy, teasing him and sounding so much like her regular self that Danny had to take a second look at her drawn face to be sure that Christina's shot had hit her too.

It scared him, to know that it was because of him that she could be hurt so badly. It humbled him, to hear her explain to the guy that Christina was wrong about him being incapable of loving anyone, that he had a mom and a brother and a girlfriend who could prove that false in a hot second. Mindy was the extraordinary one; he was just the lucky one who'd answered a simple question.

Danny couldn't put together even one coherent sentence, but the lawyer seemed to get that he couldn't find the right words. He promised to look over the documents Mindy had emailed him and hung up.

Neither of them moved. " _When Harry Met Sally . . ._?" Danny finally offered, wanting to erase her bruises. It was her version of comfort food.

So maybe his was having her in his lap, willing to be touched and ready to remind him she loved him back. "Hey," he said into her hair, just before the credits rolled. "We got them beat." 

"Mmm?" she murmured, her mouth fluttering against his neck.

"They waited for New Year's. We got it together before Halloween."

She went stiff for a second, then started giggling even as she straddled him gracelessly on the couch, her hands trying to unbutton both their shirts at once.

"Let me," he said, breathing her deep. She was panting against his neck when he stopped. "Bedroom," he said, smiling into her dazed eyes. He swatted her bottom lightly. "Either one. I plan to take my time with you."

She frowned a bit and it took her a second to find her footing. But by the time he pulled off his shirt and stood up too, she was steady, and she teased him all the way to his room – trust her to pick the one further away – by dropping her clothes one piece at a time, like a breadcrumb trail.

He was the luckiest person he knew.

*

"Oh, Danny, you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind, hey Danny, hey-hey, hey Danny," Mindy sang in the shower. He could see her pretending his shampoo bottle was a microphone through the frosted glass doors of the stall. It didn't make her singing any better. 

"That's a terrible song," he said. "Sing some Springsteen."

"Ugh, you're such an old man," she said, trying to pull him into the stall without getting water everywhere. It didn't work even a little. Danny laughed at her frustrated frown, only to sputter when the water bounced off the wall to hit his face. "This is one of those dirty May/December relationships."

He sputtered some more. "How can this be a May/December relationship when you're only five years younger than me? We're not that far apart on the calendar; we're like, um, Arbor Day and Memorial Day." 

"Was Arbor Day a big thing for you, Danny? In the sixties? All the hippies and their flower power?"

"Shut up," he said, finally climbing into the stall with her.

Of course she didn't. "So you admit I'm as fun as a three-day weekend and you're –" 

There was only one way to get her to stop, so he kissed her. When he pulled back, she looked happy, beautiful, all his. "Are you gonna wash my back?" he asked. "We've got class in an hour."

"You might have class, but I don't," she said, and sank to her knees.

"Oh, Min," he said, cradling her head in his hands.

"You're too old to make this last, I bet," she said, kissing his thighs.

"That's not age; that's love," he said.

"Nice save, my friend," she said, smiling at him up the length of his body. "You're not gonna last a New York minute." She was probably right about that, but he was going to reciprocate if it was the last thing he did. Playing hooky once wouldn't hurt their GPAs, and he had plans for his best friend – plans for the rest of their lives, actually.


End file.
